President Donald Trump made a surprise announcement on Tuesday that the United States would stop bombing the hutis in Yemen, insisting that the rebel group had agreed to stop attacking the ships in the Red Sea.
“They have announced us at least they don’t want to fight,” Trump said during a photo of the Oval office with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. “They just don’t want to fight, and we’ll honor him.”
“And they have capitulated,” he added. “But most importantly, they will take their word. They say that the ships will no longer explode.”
This image taken from the video provided by the US Navy shows an airplane that is thrown from the USS Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea before air attacks in Sanaa, Yemen, on March 15, 2025.
AP
The move limits weeks of costly attacks and threats delivered by the Trump administration, which led to a great shake of the president’s national security team.
A spokesman for the Oman Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the announcement in an X Post on Tuesday.
“After the recent discussions and contacts made by the Sultanate of Oman with the United States and the relevant authorities in Sana’a, in the Republic of Yemen, with the objective of decalcalation, the efforts have resulted in a high fire agreement between the two parties,” said the Oman’s foreign ministry in the statement.
“In the future, no part will go to the other, including US ships, in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait, ensuring freedom of navigation and soft flow of international commercial shipments,” he added.
However, Mohammed Ali al Houthi, a member of the Supreme Political Council Houthi, said the hutis are not immediately according to the high fire proposed by the United States.
The hutis “will evaluate” the proposal of Alto El Fuego of the United States “on the ground,” he published Tuesday afternoon.
When ABC News asked him for more details about the announcement, the United States central command postponed to the White House.
Trump was pressed by the reporters to obtain more details on how the agreement was joined with the hutis, but quickly said that the announcement is not an agreement.
President Donald Trump speaks while he meets with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, on May 6, 2025.
Jim Watson/AFP through Getty Images
“They have said: ‘Please, do not bombard us anymore, and we are not going to attack their ships,” he said.
When asked who told the United States that huti attacks against US ships would stop, Trump specified, saying that “it doesn’t matter” and then added that it was a “very, very good source.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance laughed and said they agreed with him.
“They no longer want to be bombarded,” Trump repeated.
Rubio added that “this was always a mission of freedom of navigation.”
“These guys are, you know, a band of people with an advanced weapons that threatened global shipping,” he said. “And the work was to make that stop.”
The United States began air attacks in Yemen against Houthi’s objectives as of March 15 and has carried out more than 800 strikes, according to the US army.
On April 18, an American strike in the Ras Isa fuel port killed at least 74 people and wounded another 171 in the most known mortal attack of the US campaign.
However, the US army has also received some successes.
The US army has lost seven Reaper drones since March 15, each drone that costs $ 30 million, and a F/A-18E combat plane left the side of the USS Harry S. Truman carrier and sank to the bottom of the Red Sea two weeks ago. No one was killed in that incident.
The USS Harry S. Truman possibly made a sudden movement due to Houthi’s fire, which finally causes the combat plane to come out, according to an American official, who cited initial field reports. The incident is still under investigation, but the aircraft carrier has been previously attacked by the hutis.
In this archive photo of March 16, 2025, Yemeni people swept the shattered glass of their homes and shops after the United States air attacks launched on the capital of Houthi, Sana’a and other provinces, in Sana’a, Yemen.
Mohammed Hamoud/Getty images, file
The Israeli forces have also made strikes in Yemen during the last two days, hitting their main port in the Red Sea, two cement factories and the Sanaa airport.
The Israeli government said that these strikes were in response to the Hutis strikes over Israel on Sunday, and Israel’s defense forces said they attacked the Hutí infrastructure in Yemen in the strikes.
Although Trump said that the United States mission against Hutis has been a mission of “freedom of navigation” from the beginning, the conflict in the Red Sea between the ships of the Hutis and the United States and British has been happening since October 8, 2023.
The Hutis said they would attack vessels related to Israel’s allies in support of the Palestinian people in Gaza after Israel launched a military operation against Gaza after Hamas’ terrorist attack on October 7, 2023.
Since then, the hutis have been pointing to vessels they say are connected to Israel’s allies in the Red Sea to several degrees of gravity in the last 19 months. The United States exceeded the conflict three days before Israel finished the high temporary fire with Hamas, resuming military operations in Gaza on March 18. The United States launched its first attack against the Hutis on March 5.
The Trump Administration has spent weeks trying to save its face about its own planning of attacks in Yemen after it was revealed that the main members of national security, including the then national security advisor, Mike Waltz, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, reported plans on imminent attacks on the signal.
The editor in chief of Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, was accidentally invited to one of the chats of the signal groups and saw details about planning.
Last week, Trump announced that Waltz would leave his position in the cabinet and would be nominated as the United States ambassador to the United Nations.
ABC News Ahmed Baider contributed to this report.
